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Sesame Streetcar Named Disaster was recorded between February and December 2012 at Village Antique Mall in Mt. Dora, FL and Justin Beckler's home studio in Casselberry, FL. All songs written by Milk Carton Superstars: Guy Larmay - guitars, bass; Jim Myers - vocals, drums.

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Milk Carton SuperstarsOrlando, Florida

Milk Carton Superstars have released four studio LPs, a two-song single, and - most recently - a digital-only live album.
They formed in 2007 when friends Guy Larmay (guitars, bass) and Jim Myers (vocals, drums) began writing songs together again for the first time. MCS are often joined on stage by bassist Jeff Boyce and violinist Jennie Landau, and in the studio by producer Justin Beckler....more

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You want the evidence? It's complicated. Just a preponderance? The truth regurgitated. I was a young man when the world pulled a muscle. So we applied some heat and ice, and we all hoped that would suffice, what could we do but roll the dice? You want a time machine? Some kind of superpower? A cosmic trampoline? Jump to your finest hour. I was a young man when I met a young woman. She moved in and made it nice, and I learned to cook the rice, what could we do but roll the dice? Flying poets heading home, dropping bombs of styrofoam. You want the remedy? You get the side effects. Like a Christmas tree strung with cancelled checks. I was a young man when I woke up this morning. I received cryptic advice, vague and yet somehow concise: important things must be learned twice. And everything meant to entice, is wrapped inside a sacrifice. What can I do but roll the dice?

Track Name: Beauty in the Eye

You have the greenest eyes for someone who never recycles anything. You have the most beautiful voice for someone who only ever has one song to sing. You know precisely how to turn the mundane into unmitigated joy. You know exactly how to make me feel like the luckiest unfortunate boy. Oh-oh, here we go, the good, the bad and the don't know. Oh-oh, what a blow, watching this closing window. I want you with me as we watch TV and wonder what the rest are doing now. I want your hair on mine, mind to mind, I want to feel the thoughts leaving your brow. I love your angel face, your easy grace and how you're kind of messy when you drink. I love the way you wear your black and white with just a splash of complimentary pink. Oh-oh, here we go, the good, the bad and the don't know. Oh-oh, what a blow, watching this closing window.

Track Name: Sugar Palace

When I go away I'm really going, walk through the x-ray, jump on a Boeing, up through the houndstooth stratus gloom, into heaven's waiting room. Then settle down someplace nice and quiet, hey there's an idea, maybe I'll try it. But the sugar palace in my dream is really made of shaving cream. At a factory they make spare parts for the do-it-yourselfers with broken hearts, they send directions that make no sense, every step without consequence. Well who's in charge down there? May I ask why? Hey there's an idea, maybe I'll apply. But the sugar palace in my head is really made of Wonder Bread. Now get this: they are blind and oblivious and ridiculous and they are us. Oh brother, they are us! When I tell my side I'll really tell it, cool and composed, an eloquent zealot, and I'll step right up to that witness stand, up to the microphone with one raised hand. Hey maybe I'll tell them when they ask me to submit, do you want to know the truth or do you want to know the shit? But the sugar palace in my heart is really just a burnt Pop-Tart.

Track Name: The Last Pigeon in America

The last pigeon in America stands next to me in the Wall Street Cantina, and bobs at a nacho that fell on the floor with the grace of a gray-winged ballerina. And all of the faces that form the lunch crowd are moving their lips and I'm sure that it's loud, and I wonder if anyone has even a hunch just what this pigeon has paid for this lunch. The manager of the Cantina does payroll in a closet stocked with Corona, and the hours are long and her boyfriend's an ass and she's thinking about moving back to Arizona. And the unhappy patrons and twelve-hour days are costing her more than this goddamn job pays, and a vicodin drowns in her unsweetened tea, bringing her post-lunch tranquility. The pigeons have all left the country, or at least they've stopped hanging around the Cantina. Some think it's the weather, some say it's the food, some claim it's the lure of a distant marina. And as the last pigeon steps out to take flight, the manager's day is absorbed by the night, and the voices of customers bounce off the walls, confessions and punch lines and quick cell phone calls.

Track Name: Go

I wear my curse like a baseball mitt, it's good for one thing and that's about it, it's my excuse when I give up and quit, I use it more than I care to admit. Good thing I've got the gift of forgetting, tend to ignore the odds, just keep on betting, and if I stumble on something upsetting, please just let it go. Me and my curse, well we go way back, though its conception is hard to track, it reminds me of all that I lack, comforts me like a panic attack. Good thing I've got the give of revision, start the new draft with the turn of the ignition, and if I take the long way to my decision, please just let me go. Me and my curse, well we're all we've got, it gets on my nerves 'cause we hang out a lot, ties all my loose ends into one big knot, it's my shadow and I'm its robot. Good thing I've got the gift of relenting, these thoughts are not my own, I'm only renting, and if I never know to whom I am consenting, please just let me go.

Track Name: Sunny 66

1966 was sunny by all accounts, it only rained in London, and only in psychedelic amounts, the money flowed like Kool-Aid through the new suburban economy, our parents told their parents something something peace and harmony. When does wanting the feeling to last become being stuck in the past? I just want it to last. Born into a family, embroidering the family crest, we were well-provided for, as my sister will attest, we had the best of everything of everything they sell at Sears, we lived next door to communists who worked as civil engineers. How do you understand something so vast when all of it changes so fast? I just want it to...Last night as I lay dreaming that I had finally fallen asleep, I pray the Lord to dig the Beatles, I pray the Stones my soul to keep. We live among the relics of the gently handled mysteries, we buy and sell the cue cards from a thousand family histories, I don't receive the news feeds or the text alerts that coincide, when I want to know what's up I play another album side. When does wanting the feeling to last become being stuck in the past? I just want it to...Last night as I lay dreaming that I had finally fallen asleep, I pray the Lord to dig the Beatles, I pray the Stones my soul to keep.

Track Name: Zero Man

Behold Zero Man, his eyes divert, he's wearing tan, he comes across like tryptophan and slips away unnoticed. His colleagues think he's quite a guy but none can say precisely why, it's something they can't quantify, they all just seem to know this. He's been observed observing us, but no one takes him serious, he's not considered dangerous, he's nothing if not yielding. His driver's license verified, well at least the ink has dried, he blends in but doesn't hide, it's normalcy he's wielding. No matter what's put on his plate, Zero Man does not gain weight. Behold Zero Man, his voice comes from a soda can, he drives a nondescript sedan to his every destination. He's got a place somewhere in town, in a complex painted beige and brown, first month free, no money down, and 46 free stations. Not a word escapes his lips, no sly remarks or little quips of personal relationships, you could say he's introverted. Still the rumor does persist that he keeps a weekly tryst, she's got a tattoo on her wrist and was recently converted. Ever since his natural birth, Zero Man's had no self-worth.

Track Name: Muddy the Water

There is a man who pulls the strings, and another man who pulls his strings, and a man above who pulls all strings, if you choose to believe such things. So, Bo Diddley had lunch with God, they drove around in St. Peter's hot rod, God said, "Bo, who do you love?" Bo said, "The Father, Son and the Velvet Glove." "What?" Oh, mother, father, see how we muddy the water. Like Eric Burdon, like ol' Mick Jones, like everyone between headphones, we try to sound conspicuous, but the DJ said she never heard of us. That's the way it goes! Oh, mother, father, see how we muddy the water.

Track Name: For the Children

Oh little baby, what can we do? This world was poisoned before we knew. But there's an antidote, though it wears off, some see a fairy, some see a moth. Oh there is magic inside your thumbs, just add persistence and it becomes your one good reason, your go-to move, your most convincing, nothing to prove. And all these guardians were once like you, all their guidance is see-through. Oh little baby, what can we say? This world means business, but that's okay. Keep your eyes wide open and hold on tight, we don't have answers, but you might. And all these guardians were once like you, all this guidance is see-through.

Track Name: This is This

The angry mob takes a lunch break at the cafeteria, they work up an appetite sustaining mass hysteria, the rent-a-cop cruises by in his security golf cart, he records the day's events with a check mark on a chart. This is this, that's all it is. The Daughters of the Revolution tap the keg and play some tunes, their ancestors are away on business trips most afternoons, the TV anchors shake their heads and offer disapproving looks, as the council builds a parking lot with out-of-date textbooks. This is this, that's all it is. I remember when philosophers conferred at laundromats, and janitors played Battleship with glamorous aristocrats, and beauty queens were known to say while reading Jitterbug Perfume, "The fist of God punctures the cloud at the heart of the mushroom." This is this, that's all it is.

Track Name: Silver Star Payphone

It's no surprise that it went down this way, an American dream made of paper mache. No real shock that we're on our own, all of these lessons serve to make that point known. And there're so many reasons, but who really believes stories of virtue as told by thieves? There used to be a payphone out on Silver Star Road, you had to talk in code. I pulled my head from the clouds and I'm lagged from the flight, my nerves are rattled, I don't want to fight. And the world might be ending, but these bills are still due, one man's apocalypse is another man's revenue. And I can never repay all the time that it takes to just learn to smile and admit my mistakes. There used to be a payphone, yellow pages swollen from the rain, swinging from a chain.